Jennifer Ashley - Lady Isabella’s Scandalous Marriage

“Lessons instead of horses? I’m certain that rankles our Danny.”

“Aye, but if he keeps getting poor marks, he’ll never get into university.”

He sounded so like a concerned father, this tall man with the dark reputation, that Isabella laughed again. “He tries to emulate you, Cam.”

“Aye, he does. That’s wh’t worries me.”

Behind Isabella, the strains of a waltz began, and couples in the ballroom glided into place. Cameron held out his broad arm. “Dance, Isabella?”

“I’d be most happy to—”

Isabella’s polite acceptance was cut off when strong fingers closed over her elbow. She smelled Mac’s soap and masculine scent overlaid with the faint odor of turpentine.

“This waltz is mine,” Mac said in her ear. “And don’t bother to tell me your card is full, my wife, because you know I’ll make short work of that.”

The Mount Street residence of a famous Scottish Lord and his new Lady has undergone a complete transformation. Privileged guests have reported wallpaper, carpets, and objects d’art of exquisite taste and refinement, which speaks of the Lady’s most gracious upbringing. The guests range from quite a Parisian crowd to foreign princes to the lofty ladies who grace our London stages. —April 1875

Isabella was never certain how she reached the ballroom floor without stumbling over her rose-studded train or high-heeled slippers. She heard the music begin, felt Mac’s hand cup her waist, felt herself pulled into the sway of the dance. Her ploy of making herself blasé about Mac seemed suddenly ridiculous.

She’d always loved the waltz and had loved best to dance it with Mac. He’d guide her unerringly until she’d forget about the steps and simply flow with the music. She’d float as though she danced on air, safe in the arms of the man she loved.

Tonight, her slippers pinched and her heart banged against too-tight boning. Mac’s hand on her waist burned through bodice, corset, and chemise, as though his fingers branded bare skin. His strong legs moving against her skirt heated her body still more.

“You were rude, you know,” she said, as though every step didn’t unnerve her. “I was enjoying speaking with Cameron.”

“Cameron knows when he’s gooseberry.”

The picture of Cameron the womanizer as a gooseberry should have been amusing, but Isabella was too distracted by Mac for laughter. She wished she didn’t like feeling the play of his shoulder under her hand, the way her fingers were lost in his firm grip. They both wore several layers of clothing, fashion being what it was, but in her opinion, the number of layers wasn’t nearly enough.

“I suppose you are pleased with yourself,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “You know I couldn’t refuse to dance with you without the scene being repeated all over London. Everyone loves to gossip about us.”

“London’s insatiable need for gossip is one weapon in my arsenal,” Mac said, his voice as smooth as fine wine. “Though not always a reliable one.”

Isabella couldn’t bring herself to look straight into his eyes. She had enough trouble balancing without letting herself become fixated on those copper irises. Instead, she focused on his chin, which was brushed with red gold whiskers. Remembering she knew what they tasted like did not help.

“Interesting, and a bit insulting, that you talk of what is between us in terms of weapons of war,” she said.

“It’s an apt metaphor. This ballroom is a battlefield, this dance the engagement, your weapon that decadent gown that hugs you so well.”

Mac’s gaze swept over her off-the-shoulder bodice and rested on the yellow roses at her décolletage. Isabella had favored yellow roses since he’d painted her with them the second day they were married. His eyes darkened, and her exposed skin burned.

“Then another of your weapons is dancing me until my feet hurt,” Isabella said. “That and your kilt.”

He looked nonplussed. “My kilt?”

“You look particularly fine in a kilt.”

Mac’s gaze flickered. “Yes, I remember, you always liked looking at my legs. And other parts of my anatomy. Rumor has it that a Scotsman wears nothing at all under his kilt.”

Isabella remembered mornings when he’d wear nothing but a kilt draped carelessly around his hips, his feet up at the table in their bedroom while he perused the morning paper. Mac was heady enough in formal dress, but in undress, he was devastating.

“You read too much into my statement,” Isabella said, voice unsteady.

“Do I? Would you like to come out to the terrace and satisfy your curiosity about the other part?”

“I want to go nowhere near a terrace with you, thank you very much.” On the terrace at her father’s house, after he’d walked into her debut ball without invitation, Mac had kissed her for the first time.

Mac’s eyes glinted, a sinful smile touching his mouth. “You fear it a more dangerous battleground?”

“If you must keep on with the war metaphor, then yes, I feel that the terrace would give me a tactical disadvantage.”

Mac pulled her the slightest bit closer. “You always have the advantage of me, Isabella.”

“I hardly think so. Why should I?”

He tugged her closer still. “Because you can unman me by simply walking into a room—as you did yesterday in my studio. I’ve lived like a monk for three and a half years, and to see you so close, to smell you, to touch you . . . Have pity on a poor celibate.”

“Not pursuing others was your choice.”

Mac caught and held her gaze, and finally she looked into his eyes. Behind the teasing sparkle, she saw a quietness she’d never noted before in him.

“Yes,” he said. “It was.”

Isabella believed him. She could easily name half a dozen women who would leap into bed with Mac Mackenzie the moment he indicated they were welcome. Isabella knew he hadn’t pursued women, either before or after she’d left him, because plenty of people would have delighted to tell her so if he had. Even their more spiteful acquaintances had to admit that Mac had remained faithful to his wife, even after their separation.

“Perhaps I should change my perfume,” Isabella said.

“It has nothing to do with the perfume.” Mac leaned to her, his breath touching the curve between her neck and shoulder. “I like that you still wear attar of roses.”

“I am fond of roses,” she said faintly.

“I know. Yellow ones.”

Isabella tripped again. Mac straightened, his hand tightening on her waist. “Careful.”

“I’m clumsy tonight,” she said. “These slippers are wretched. May we please sit down?”

“I told you, not until the waltz is over. This dance is my price, and I can’t very well let you go when you’ve only half-paid, can I?”

“Your price for what?”

“For not kissing you senseless in front of all these people. Not to mention yesterday on the stairs.”

Isabella’s fingers shook. “You would have kissed me yesterday, even though I did not wish it?”

“But you did wish it, my wife. I know you so very well.”

Isabella didn’t answer, because he had the truth of it. When they’d stood face-to-face on the stairs, in the house they used to share, she’d almost let him kiss her. If Molly hadn’t interrupted them, Isabella would have let him take her into his arms and press his paint-stained face to hers, to touch her as much as he liked. But Mac had let her go, his choice.

“Please, may we stop now, Mac? I really am quite warm.”

“You do look flushed. There’s only one remedy for that.”

“A seat and a cool drink?”

“No.” A smile spread over his face, the same wicked smile that had destroyed Isabella the debutante more than six years ago. He swung her out of the dance, tucked her arm through his, and led her swiftly across the ballroom and out of the French windows. “A stroll on the terrace.”

“Mac.”

Mac ignored her protest and propelled them along the length of the chill and dimly lit terrace. He stopped at the end of it, in the shadows beyond the lit windows.

“Now then,” he said.

Isabella found herself against the wall, Mac’s strong hands on either side of her.

Isabella’s breath was sweet, her body a warm length in the cool air. Her bosom rose against her décolletage, diamonds sparkling on her skin.

They’d stood like this on her father’s terrace the night they’d met, Isabella against the wall, Mac’s hand splayed on the bricks beside her. Isabella had been eighteen then, her dress virgin white, her only adornment a necklace of pearls. A pure, untouchable maiden with glorious hair, a ripe plum ready to be plucked.

The temptation to touch her had been irresistible. The wager Mac had agreed to that night had been simple—enter the overly priggish Earl Scranton’s house without invitation, dance with the prim and proper debutante in whose honor the ball was being held, and entice her to kiss him.

Mac had expected to find a stick-thin maiden with a prissy mouth and irritating mannerisms. Instead, he’d found Isabella.

It had been like discovering a butterfly among colorless moths. The instant Mac had seen Isabella, he’d wanted to know her, to talk to her, to learn everything about her. He remembered how she’d watched him push through the crowded ballroom toward her, her chin lifted, her green eyes daring him to do his worst. Her friends had whispered behind her, no doubt warning her who he was, hoping to watch her rebuff the scandalous Lord Roland “Mac” Mackenzie. Isabella, Mac had come to know, was quite good at the rebuff.

He’d stopped before her, and without saying a word, Isabella had taken his breath away. Her hair spilled over her shoulder in a river of red, her eyes glinted with cool intelligence, and he’d wanted her. To dance with her, to paint her, to make love to her. Come, sweetheart. Sin with me.

Mac had grabbed the nearest male acquaintance and forced the man to introduce them, knowing that this perfectly raised young lady would refuse to speak to him at all until then. When Mac had held out his hand and asked the conventional question, “My lady, may I have this waltz?” she’d given him a cool look and lifted her wrist to show him her dance card dangling from it.

“What a pity,” she’d said. “My card is full.” Of course it was. She was a well-protected debutante, the oldest daughter of Earl Scranton, an advantageous catch. One of her father’s handpicked gentlemen would even now be pushing his way through to her, hurrying to claim his waltz.

Mac had caught the card in his hand, removed a pencil from his pocket, and slashed a heavy diagonal line through all the names. Across this line he wrote in his careless scrawl—Mac Mackenzie.

He dropped the card and held out his hand. “Come dance with me, Lady Isabella,” he’d said. I dare you . . .

He had expected her to freeze him with a cutting dismissal. She’d walk away, her nose in the air, seek her father’s footmen, and instruct them to throw the blackguard out.

Instead, she’d placed her hand in his. They’d eloped that very night.

Tonight, in the semidarkness of Lord Abercrombie’s terrace, Isabella’s hair stood out like fire, but her eyes were shadowed. She hadn’t screamed and fled from him the night they’d met, and she didn’t scream and flee now.

On the terrace at her father’s house, she’d regarded him with courage, her eyes unafraid. Mac had touched his lips to hers, a touch only, not a kiss. When he’d eased back, Isabella had stared up at him in shock.

Mac had been equally shocked. He’d intended to laugh at her fluttering modesty and leave her. Debutante kissed, wager won. But after the first touch of lips, he couldn’t have dragged himself away if he’d been tied to one of Cameron’s swiftest racehorses.

At the next touch of mouths, Isabella had parted her lips, trying to kiss him back. Mac had laughed softly in triumph, told her she was impossibly sweet, and claimed her mouth. He’d wanted her in his bed that very night, needed it, craved it. But he’d ruin her utterly if he didn’t marry her, and Mac didn’t want to hurt a hair on this lady’s head.

Ergo, he’d married her.

That night, after the kiss, Isabella had opened her lips and whispered his name. Tonight, those same red lips parted, and she said, “Have you looked into the forgery I told you about yesterday morning?”

The present returned to Mac like a cold slap. “I told you, Isabella, I don’t give a damn if some fool wants to copy my paintings and sign my name to them.”

“And sell them?”